It would have been nice to be able to say that I was traveling all the way from London to Hong Kong overland, but I am cheating between Minsk and Moscow, and flying.
I just needed to workout how to get to Minsk airport first.
A taxi to the airport is 40€ and the bus is 2€ - So bus it is.
We asked the girl in the hostel to write us a note which said something along the lines of "please can we have two tickets to the airport on the 8.25 bus, on 30th June". We had walked through the bus station numerous times on the way into the city so thought we were set.
We got to the bus station and checked all the bus stops but couldn't see where the 300E stopped. We also couldn't see the ticket office which we thought was a bit strange.
We went to see the woman at this counter. We gave her out bit of paper. She read it twice. Looked confused, shook her head and gave it back.
So we tried the woman in this counter. She was more helpful. She gave us some fantastic directions. I think they were fantastic, they were in Belarusan so I didn't understand a word. From the gesticulation they looked very good.
We walked in the direction she had pointed. Under the station and out the other side. All that was there was the main road, a few trolley busses, but no bus station.
We were getting no where so walked the short distance back to the hostel. (Possibly to book a taxi) On the way we made one final attempt to get tickets. The woman read our note, the wrote a reply.
It turned out we had been at the local bus station, we needed to be at the international bus station. If we had just turned right at the front of the station and walked a tiny bit further we would have found it. And the note from the third woman said "you can buy train tickets here"
So the next morning we got the bus to the airport with no problem (apart from the angry man who shouted at me for sitting in his seat.) Happily, at the airport, there were lots of helpful signs, and even some English speakers.
This tiny little Utair plane flew me all the way to Moscow.
I got into Russia without having to show my passport, let alone my visa. It is a shame I then had to wait 2 hours at the airport for my transfer to the hotel. 11 hours door to door - it might have been quicker getting the train after all.
And after a month of shared dorms in the hostels I now have my own hotel room for two whole nights.